Using DOS file contents as command line arguments in BASH

Question

This is a follow-up to this question's answer.

How can I modify the code so that the annoying CRLF of a DOS created file can be stripped away before being passed to xargs?

Example file 'arglist.dos'.

# cat > arglist.unix
src/file1 dst/file1
src/file2 dst/file2
src/file3 dst/file3
^c
# sed 's/$/\r/' arglist.unix > arglist.dos

The unix variant of the file works with this:

$ xargs -n2 < arglist.unix echo cp
cp src/file1 dst/file1
cp src/file2 dst/file2
cp src/file3 dst/file3

For my own education, how can I change it to accept either the 'arglist.unix' or 'arglist.dos' files on the same command line?

Puppe · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-23 07:33:58Z

1

cat arglist.dos | tr -d "\r" | xargs -n2 echo cp

gives you the same result as

cat arglist.unix | tr -d "\r" | xargs -n2 echo cp

so it works on both files.

tr -d "\r" removes all the CR characters

answered Nov 23, 2009 at 7:33

Puppe

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1 Comment

Jamie Over a year ago

Thanks. I guess what I was after was an understanding of the < operator in the original command line; you're example makes it clear to me that xargs is taking it's input from stdin in both yours an my versions.

Jeremy Stein · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-21 18:01:48Z

1

Use d2u to remove the CR before passing the file to xargs.

edited Nov 21, 2009 at 18:01

Jeremy Stein

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answered Nov 20, 2009 at 21:26

David Harris

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3 Comments

David Harris Over a year ago

Different name; same functionality.

Jamie Over a year ago

I'd prefer to do it on the same command line, does d2u/dos2unix support that?

Jeremy Stein Over a year ago

As with many unix commands, when invoked without parameters, dos2unix operates on stdin and stdout.

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